


Life in a Flash

by deltasyork



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Character Death, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memories, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4697192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltasyork/pseuds/deltasyork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never thought that he’d go out like a bitch. He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory protecting his friends - his family from their rivals that were a constant threat. Instead he was hit twice. Two bullets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life in a Flash

Walking into that apartment for the first time had been one of the most daunting things he’d ever experienced. Sure he was the guy that wore the mask and blew things up. He didn’t have a care in the world when he was the Vagabond but without the mask and the face paint he was just Ryan Haywood, the guy that had a theatre major.

Becoming the Vagabond wasn’t ever a life ambition for the guy. He would have happily went into any number of professions, even if his degree didn’t really lead anywhere.

Geoff took him in, however, like a little lost puppy. Said that Ryan would be a great member to add to the crew with a bit of training and shaping. They were a mismatch of people and Ryan would slide easily between them all and their family would only grow with the addition of him.

 

_“Ryan? Ryan speak to me. Come on, you gotta be okay. Ryan!”_

 

“Ryan!”

His head snapped up and in front of him were five other men. Ray, Michael, Jack, Geoff, and Gavin.

The Brit seemed to be as much of a puppy as Ryan tended to turn into when he was confused. He was always smiling and joking around.

Ryan quickly found so much comfort with him, more than he found with the others. That didn’t mean he wasn’t comfortable around them but whenever it was a rough day or a hard night he always found that the Brit wanted to curl up beside him and they’d protect each other from the horrors of that day.

It was nice.

It was home.

 

*-*-*-*

 

_“Don’t go, Ryan. You can’t leave me.”_

 

“You can’t leave me, Ryan!”

“Gavin. We’ve been at this dumb arcade for about five hours. We were supposed to go home straight after the heist.” The last few words were whispered because they really couldn’t go around boasting about a successful job. You never knew how many people were rats.

Rats broke down a crew. It was one of the reasons behind why there weren’t really many people ever allowed to join their crew. If you didn’t mesh with everyone you didn’t mesh with anyone and you were out. It was a bizarre way of working and it took him a while to get used to it at first but it didn’t take long to realise how it worked. The crew had had many blow outs because of someone getting someone else hurt. They cared about each other too much. People didn't get it. Other crews didn't get it and maybe that was why they were one of the leading crews in Los Santos.

Ryan knew that a lot of other crews would leave their guys behind, trade the lives of their partners to save their own. The Fake AH Crew wouldn't do that. The comradery that they shared was another means of protection. Protection that was better than any gun that they could buy (or steal).

"So what? It's not like we've got another heist tomorrow. We don't have one right?"

The blonde could only shake his head with a laugh, "you're ridiculous, Mr. Free."

Gavin knew he'd won. Ryan always gave in and let him do what he wanted. He had more freedom with him than any of the other guys. Ryan would swear blindly that it had absolutely nothing to do with the slight feelings that he had for the man. No, he was just the nicest one. He was this nice with the other lads when the spent time together, even if it didn't happen so often.

"You know you love me, Ryan. Now go get me some more tokens."

 

*-*-*-*

 

_ "Tell me how to save you. Please just..." _

"You saved me."

He should have been offended that the Brit was so shocked. They were best friends, he'd given them the title but he was still shocked that Ryan had put himself at risk to save him. There was a lot more that played into it, obviously, but that wasn't important. What was important was that Gavin was okay. That he wasn't injured and he was still alive.

He was about to point out all of this to the man but then soft lips were on his and he was stuck. His mind was short circuited because Gavin Free, the British idiot that he'd fallen for after a few weeks of knowing him, was kissing him. Actually kissing him, with emotions and feelings and everything that was just breaking down all of Ryan's defences. It wasn't the best place for it to happen. In the middle of a battle field whilst still under attack. Gavin seemed to realise that too because before he even got a chance to respond to what was happening, the younger was pulling away with a goofy grin on his face.

"I've wanted to do that for a while," he admitted and if Ryan had thought Gavin's normal smile was adorable then he was sorely mistaken because the lovesick smile he had on his face right now was definitely better.

"Same."

He was still broken. Still reeling in the fact that he'd just been kissed by the man he'd so badly wanted to kiss for so long. His future relationship with Gavin was definitely going to be a roller coaster and he was so excited.

 

*-*-*-*

 

_"Gavin, we need to get him in the car. We need to go. **Now**."_

 

"Get in the car."

He was such a baby. These sort of arguments occurred all of the time in the crew. Gavin was yelled at constantly for being an idiot when they were out on a job. This was one of the tamer arguments as well but here Ryan was. Waiting in a car whilst he watched the Brit sit on a wall and huff about how he hated them all.

"I'm not going back to that flat."

"Gav, you're being ridiculous. Get in the car."

They all knew that when Michael got mad he didn't really control himself very well. They all knew that a lot of what he said he didn't mean and they worked with it. Every single one of them had been yelled at, Ryan included, and most of the time it was like water off of a duck's back.

This time it was different though and he couldn't understand why. Gavin was fine one minute and in the next he was calling them all pricks and storming out. It had thrown him for yet another loop because he was still getting used to all of the man's little quirks.

Gavin wasn't just going to get in the car.

With a sigh, he pulled himself out of the car and wandered around to join the man on the small brick wall. He waited for a moment before wrapping an arm around his shoulders, shielding him from some of the rain.

Luckily it broke through some of his defences because Gavin was leaning into the touch rather than trying to push away from him.

"You gonna tell me what's wrong?"

"I'm sick of being the dumb one. They always yell at me. I just thought that getting the fire engine would be a good distraction and then we could all get away. Why are they always yelling at me? They can all sod off."

Ryan shook his head fondly. He knew that his head was in the right place, but sometimes Gavin's methods were a little out of the ordinary and it didn't really do much other than cause more hassle for the crew. The fire engine had distracted the police alright but it had distracted them as well and in the time it took for them to recover, the cops had done the same. It wouldn't have been a big deal if Gavin had gave them a bit of warning. More warning than a scream off "look at me, bitches" and the sudden blast of water that had hit most of them.

“We all know that your heart’s in it, Gavvy,” he started, pressing a kiss to his forehead, “you just act before thinking everything through properly. Had we known what you were going to do to create a distraction we would have got out of there but we didn’t.”

Gavin proceeded to tuck his head against the man’s shoulder, hiding his face.

He refused to let the man hide and brought his head up so he could look in the man’s eyes. Ryan pressed closer and joined their lips together easily in a slow, gentle kiss. It wasn’t anything too risque, neither of them were all that comfortable with showing the real side of their relationship. The relationship that was Gavin and Ryan not Vagabond and the Brit.

When the kiss broke it took both of them a moment to gather their emotions and open their eyes again. But when Ryan saw the look that Gavin’s eyes now held, he knew that he’d done something right. The sadness had left them and the old man could see the pure _Gavin_ shining in his irises once more.

“I love you, Gav. You’re not dumb. You’re really smart. You’re just impulsive and sometimes things go wrong. That doesn’t make you dumb, it makes you Gavin.”

 

*-*-*-*

 

_“Fuck, Ryan.”_

 

“Fuck, Ryan.”

“I told you I was good,” He teased as he moved his arm for Gavin to tuck against his side, head coming to rest on his chest.

It seemed to be a ritual in the crew that after a life threatening heist the apartment just dissolved into sex and everyone was fucking. Later they’d come out of it and they’d act as if they hadn’t just heard moans and groans floating out from underneath doors, and they’d pretend that the banging of a headboard against a wall was simply some sort of construction job. They worked that way and it was just another way for them to confuse other crews. They were definitely more ‘close knit’ then some of the other ones, that much was obvious.

“Good for an old man, maybe.”

The blonde quickly flipped so that the younger was trapped underneath him and he smirked, “Do I have to give you a repeat performance to prove that I’m more than just an ‘old man’?”

The look that blossomed in Gavin’s eyes told him more than he needed to know. It never stopped after just one round. They were always the last ones out from their little cave that they created when they needed to unwind. It had been the butt of many jokes before and it had taken Ryan a while to get used to the way that they went about embarrassing him. It seemed to roll off of Gavin’s back, though, never phased by the idiots. Sometimes he’d shoot something back at them, something to make them all shut up because they’d been in that bedroom since the previous day. The rest of them had came out mere hours after they’d returned to the penthouse apartment.

 

*-*-*-*

 

He never thought that he’d go out like a bitch. He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory protecting his friends - his family from their rivals that were a constant threat. Instead he was hit twice. Two bullets.

It was a gang attack gone wrong. They only wanted the modded weapons but none of them seemed to take into account that their enemies may be using them. Modded AKs and KG9s were difficult to work with. The grips, the extended mags, the sights. All of it only made the job that much harder, and it was all it had taken to send Ryan down to the floor.

The bullets weren’t fatal wounds. If he got medical attention quick enough they’d be able to stem the bleeding and he’d be up again soon enough. In the middle of a battlefield, though, you didn’t get instant medical attention. You were forced to lay out in the middle of the field, presenting every weakness that had brought you to this point - that had brought you down.

Ryan never liked the idea of Gavin seeing his weakness, didn’t like the idea of Gavin seeing him when he was bleeding from his wounds, verging on the brink of death, fighting to stay awake in the hopes of hearing his voice just one more time. If this was how he was supposed to die then he’d welcome it with open arms when he was sure that the Brit he’d fallen so hard for was okay.

The old cliched saying that your life flashes before your eyes when you’re staring death down was something he never believed. He’d been in too many situations where his life could have flashed and it didn’t. Now was different. Now he was going to die and he was leaving behind the one thing that made him happy. The one thing that had kept him sane in his time as part of the Fake AH Crew.

“Gav?” His words were barely there, pain filling his system, clogging his senses. He was somewhat aware of being moved to a vehicle but there wasn’t much time left. Ryan didn’t know how much longer he would be able to hold on. Pain was winning. _Death_ was winning and he hated that he couldn’t fight back more.

Maybe this was just how it was meant to be. He wasn’t going to go out in some huge ball of fire. He wasn’t going to be blown into a million pieces by an RPG. He was going to go out remembering all of those good times with the Brit, _his Brit_ , bleeding out in the back of whoever’s car they had hijacked. And he was okay with that. He could accept that. At least he knew that he’d been able to protect Gavin, his one saving grace.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tagged Temporary Character Death because in my head there's a part two, it just depends on whether or not I ever get round to writing the second part of it.
> 
> Proof read late at night so if there are any problems then it's because my sleepy mind overlooked them. Hope you enjoyed~


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